Escape From Evil - Cathy Wilson [28]
I hadn’t thought about Mark and his cronies for ages before then. Now, with a bit of distance between us, I realized there was a cloud over my head whenever I thought of them. I couldn’t put my finger on it. Mark had always been nice enough with me and Mum had always seemed happy enough to see them. She’d certainly never thrown them out. So what was it? What was causing this feeling that something about them wasn’t quite right?
The foster dad at this house evoked similar unexplainable fears as Mum’s male friends. He was easier to dislike. I didn’t like the filthy way he dressed and he was always breathing heavily and wheezing unattractively because of his weight. I’d never make that snap judgement now, but kids live by such random prejudices. He just looked a wrong’un to me. On this occasion I was right.
I don’t know how long I’d been there when he first touched me. I was in my bedroom, alone, when he came in. At first I thought he was going to do the laundry early to help me out. But he didn’t. He just closed the door behind him and stared at me while I was getting dressed. Then he called me over and made me sit on his lap for a cuddle. I felt like cornered prey. I had no choice. I walked over to him and he crouched down, his back against the door, and then I sat on his knee.
I don’t remember what he did exactly, but I knew it wasn’t right. The closed door told me that. The fact that he’d never had a good word to say about me told me that. Everything about our cuddle was wrong.
And all the while I could hear that disgusting breathing, like an animal, each new foul exhalation making me have to fight the urge to puke.
It was only after that encounter that I remembered Paul, my old babysitting neighbour, who used to ask me to sit on his lap as well. He was nice. But hadn’t he done the same things to me that this man had just done? For the first time, I realized Paul hadn’t been so nice after all.
Even though I now suspected the truth about what our neighbour had done to me, I still promised myself I would never tell Mum. She had enough on her plate. It would break her heart to know she’d sent me into the arms of a bad man. That is, it would if I ever saw her again.
The worst thing about my stay at that foster home was not knowing when it would end. Just about the only question I asked in my first few days there was ‘When can I go home?’
‘That’s for us to know and you to find out.’
Something else to hate you for . . .
Then, after about three weeks of hell, my luck changed. For all my claims that it was a prison, we were quite free to come and go, as long as we didn’t miss meal times. The foster couple were contractually bound to provide three square meals a day – and that is what they were going to do. No more, no less. Ironically, I probably enjoyed it more than the others. However basic, it was, after all, still cooked food.
I was playing on the climbing frame in the park opposite the house when I heard a voice.
‘Hello, my angel.’
I nearly fell off the frame.
‘Mum!’
I didn’t know how she’d found me, but I couldn’t get down quickly enough. Before I reached her, Mum started backing away like I’d done something wrong.
‘Not so loud,’ she said quietly. ‘If anyone discovers who I am you’ll be moved somewhere else.’
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t even give my own mother a hug in case one of the fat fosters was peering out of their window and saw us.
Reason number three to hate them.
But they couldn’t stop us talking. As long as I carried on playing on the swings and roundabouts, I could chat away. No one would suspect we were having anything other than a casual conversation.
The truth is, I would have been happy with that. I would have been happy with anything. I was just so delighted to hear Mum’s voice, she could have been talking in her sleep and it would have sounded like music to my ears.
I don’t remember much of what was said. Just Mum promising that she would get me out and telling me she